


our weary eyes still stray to the horizon

by crimsonepitaph



Series: Soldiers Verse [8]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: Jared's perspective on latest events leads him to an important decision in his relationship with Jensen.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Series: Soldiers Verse [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/786189
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	our weary eyes still stray to the horizon

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Whenever I finish writing something, I am unreasonably excited to send it to borgmama1of5. I can't wait to hear what she thinks of the worlds I build; many times, she doesn't just encourage me to create more, to do them better; a lot of the times, she's part of them - that feeling of having someone to share your ramblings with, that's half the joy in writing. I think of her practical observations when I do. I think of the reader she's been, and how to write for her to understand me. So. Yeah. Sentimental way of saying a big thank you, I am grateful to have you as a beta. 
> 
> **Author's note #2:** This story starts the morning the previous one did ("A distant ship, smoke on the horizon"), but it tells the story of those days from Jared's point of view. 
> 
> **Author's note #3:** Title is from who else, but Pink Floyd, this time, "High hopes".

_It's an execution row._

_A basement, walls of it, grey, like the halls in the building where Morgan has his office. But this is open, just one wall to the side,_ _then_ _against concrete, the audience_ _._ _And_ _a man in front of Jared. Background lit by a street light, dim, dirty yellow. To the left of Jared, there's nothing. It doesn't exist._

_Sandy. Chad. Chris. Ahmad. His father._

_Emptier. Hollow. That's how he feels; too much emotion that collapses unto itself, leaves a void filled by the gun in front of him. The gunman._

_Sandy._

_A solid figure just as much as it is a feeling inside of him._

_Pity that she had to suffer through Chad's death. Guilt for having been the one to take h_ _er husband_ _away_ _from her. Frustration that she had given up on him_ _, that she’d left, hadn’t given Jared the chance to grieve with them_ _._ _Now she_ _'s_ _here_ _, looking at Jared, silent, letting the air fill with all the should haves, all the impossibilities of the life she and Chad could have lived._

_Chad. Sorrow. Missing him. Emptiness._

_The emptiness you feel when_ _one who_ _knows you is gone. Knows you truly. Deeply._

_And no etiquettes like_ _broken, crazy, strange, too stubborn, too stoic, too impulsive, not good, too young_ _are attached. Chad had never treated Jared_ _like he_ _waited for him to_ _become the failure his father had been. More than know Jared, Chad believed in him. But_ _now,_ _Chad’s_ _eyes are closed. The rueful smile in blue eyes he'd seen last time, sitting on the stairs of Chad's home, watching his daughter play, Jared smoking a cigarette, an evening with the sun setting behind Chad and Sandy's voice beckoning them to dinner...that moment, that moment is missing._ _Now_ _Chad is_ _simply_ _a statue, closed off, renouncing everything Jared had ever been to him._

 _Chris._ _He’s here._ _Chris is many; a manifestation of all the innocent people who perished because of Jared's choices._

_Ahmad._

_Foe amongst friends; torturer among those who only tortured themselves._

_It may be the hardest one_ _for Jared_ _._

_He still remembers being strung out, played with, harmed beyond the point of deserving._

_Ahmad_ _'s the only one who's smiling. Wide grin. He's content. Of course, this is the moment he'd been waiting for. The finale to his grand show, the satisfying conclusion, reached. And Jared...Jared feels vulnerable. Fragile. Like Ahmad could reach out with one finger and Jared would crumble to ashes in front of him. Like he could reach inside Jared, tug at every nerve ending, create pain out of every millimeter of Jared's being. All this, smiling. Tunes playing._

_Anger. At his father. Buried so deep, Jared had mistaken it for weakness all these years. Immense, inconsequential, pointless, rage simmering, painting in muted beige all his memories. He'd denied his father, he'd denied he had a connection with everything that was the selfishness of an abusive alcoholic. Wrongness that had crawled under Jared's skin, had embedded itself too deep for a Jared to even notice it was there._

_He knows now. But it matters too little; there's nothing more he can do about it._

_Jensen._

_A flash. Different. A smooth transition to a moment that never existed. A goodbye before the end. An old prison. Jensen, pale, blood on his knuckles where he's holding the rifle, smudged above his eyebrow, seeping through the uniform, crimson red, green eyes looking at Jared, searching. The back of Jared's right hand comes to Jensen's cheek. A touch so gentle, so contrasting to the sound of the bullets flying around them. He has to do it. This is goodbye. This is everything Jensen means to him, in one look. In a short press of his lips to Jensen's. Hard - saying, asking, don't forget me. I love you. I'm sorry._

_Then he comes back. Jensen isn't given the chance to answer. Of course; in every version, Jared hadn't given it to him._

_The gunman takes aim._

_Jared knows what's waiting._

_He's not afraid. He has never been. He's more afraid the uncertainty. What if it will not happen? What if -?_

_The shot rings out in the silence. A single bullet. It hits him. Right where it needs to._

_He staggers, then falls._

_The front of his uniform jacket begins to change color. The pain emerges. It settles in, find a nest in Jared's entire upper body. It's inefficient; Jared has too little time left to live to matter._

_With every blink, the pain fades more. The memories, the figures, the feelings. First thoughts, unreal, lifeless, simple figurines. Then static. Brief moment of realization. He's alone. He's dying._

_Panic._

_It doesn't matter._

_This is the end._

_In a fraction, it becomes nothing._

_Fade to black._

~

Jared wakes with a start.

It takes seconds to figure out where he is. That he’s _alive_. The t-shirt he’d thrown on as a pajama and the back of his boxers are drenched in cold sweat, sending shivers down his spine as soon as he escapes the comfort of the cover.

The cold water on his face does him good - scatters most of the panic.

But what is left is worse.

It’s pleasant.

 _Wrong_ , but pleasant: a feeling of completion, of something he’d been waiting for. So strong, so bittersweet, his chest feels full of it. Heavy, liquid, impossibly seeming like it’s replacing every one of his cells with air, like Jared’s outside himself, immersed in water, _silence,_ the pressure, and he breathes, imperceptibly, forgetting about it, and that’s it, it’s peace, peace found only at the bottom, under the weight of everything, knowing that you can do nothing.

He dresses.

But he can’t bear the feel of the fabric on his skin. He puts on his jeans, but when he pulls down the t-shirt, he feels suffocated. Hot, hotter, sweat dripping down his forehead, gathering on his upper lip.

He hears noise in the kitchen.

Jensen’s presence, one that both brings comfort and takes the air out of the room for Jared.

He’s afraid.

If he’d told Jensen what he dreams of -

But he’s done this. Not once, not twice. Almost all his life. He can do it. He can pretend to be normal.

~

When he gets out of his truck, Jared’s a bit more calm. Surface of the water, smooth, reflection of the outside. A sunny day, hot, heavy.

The mess hall in the old building is a large room, cool air that hits Jared as soon as he enters. The thick cement walls, the high windows, the feel of the uneven floor under his feet - Jared finds comfort in it. A number of folding chairs are spread out in a circle, near a table filled with bottles and food plates. The smell of coffee hits Jared’s nostrils.

A figure, short and slim, dark hair. Cortese.

“Nice turnout,” Jared says, corner of his mouth lifted.

Maybe this won’t be so bad.

No one’s here, and Jared arrived with his usual rigid punctuality - not before, not after the scheduled time. The smallest of his habits. 

The therapist turns. She’s dressed in navy suit pants, her dark blouse with small white flowers tied at the waist, forming a V over her chest. She looks…approachable. Not like the medical professional Jared meets each week, starched white coat, glasses.

“You shouldn’t celebrate just yet, we’re half an hour early,” Cortese replies, smiling at him like she knows something Jared doesn’t.

She does.

Jared’s lost.

Wasn’t -

“Captain Morgan’s told you the right time,” she explains, probably interpreting Jared’s gesture of unseeingly folding his aviators into his t-shirt neck as confusion. No, maybe it was the frown Jared’s sporting. The glare. “He wanted us to talk a little bit first, Sergeant,” Cortese continues, shrugging.

Suddenly, the fight goes out of Jared. Of course Morgan told her to be here earlier. With him. He’s probably afraid Jared’s gonna hand out trauma like candy to the impressionable people that dared to participate.

Cortese’s surprisingly quick in dismantling the theory.

“I'm going to tell you something that's hard to believe,” she starts, leaning against the table slightly, plastic cup of coffee in hand. “It isn't about you, Sergeant. The captain asked us to come half an hour early because of his own anxiety.”

Jared blinks.

“ _Anxiety_.”

Cortese nods. “Over things going well.”

“Morgan?” he asks, word out without Jared really wanting it to be converted into sound.

Because, really, they're talking about Morgan here. The guy wouldn't flinch if someone held a gun to his head, fingers on the trigger. There would be a smile in his eyes, the _fuck you, I still got the last laugh_ kind of way to go out.

That he'd be stressed out about these meetings is laughable.

"Sergeant Padalecki, you surely must know Captain Morgan is human," Cortese says, carrying the tone of Jared's reaction into her reply. "As we all do, he has things he cares about too much for the rational to win out."

Uh. No.

Impossible.

Surely...

Okay, maybe.

"Just take a deep breath, Seargant," she laughs, tone laced with irony devoid of maliciousness. "You're going to do a fantastic job at this."

“Sure,” Jared says, completely unsure.

On one side, this comes closer to what he’s always wanted to do. Help people. It’s direct. Unmitigated by anything like logistics, politics, changes in mood of the more powerful. Just him, and a problem at hand: each and every soldier that comes. A separate mission Jared’s excited to start.

On the other - he’s fucking terrified. He feels like he shouldn’t be here. Someone should have asked Jared before what is his most comforting illusion, and the answer most definitely should not have been death.

Which it is.

Which is why, Jared’s a tad reluctant to give any kind of advice.

In the spirit of talking about things, and contributing to Morgan’s efforts of not fucking up this meeting, Jared tells Cortese about his morning.

She listens carefully. Jared looks her in the eyes, and remembers why he hasn’t abandoned therapy until now.

Because there’s no pity. She, too, sees it like a problem. A task. Facts laid out, and then, brainstorming for a solution. Emotions as pertinent details, but not the focus. Jared as a man, a soldier, a fully capable human with a few too many pots on the stove and some minor burns, but _whole_ , the sum of his issues and his good features. 

She bites her lips before speaking. “And…you’re afraid - “

Jared laughs, embarrassed, a bit derisory. “I’m - “. He doesn’t know what he is. “What if one day I can’t - if the gun on my nightstand becomes the right option?”

Cortese’s brows crease into a slight frown. She puts the plastic cup of coffee down on the edge of the table. Jared would have liked ceramic, glass, something to make a little bit of noise to cover the multitude of thoughts he doesn’t want to voice out loud.

“Genevieve…” he starts, like he never does, asking, searching, refusing to admit he’s doing that. He’s not quite sure why here, and why right now. Maybe the imminent task that requires Jared to have an answer to the bad thoughts. “It is the only thing I couldn’t do. Take that way out. I have - to some extent…but circumstances helped me save face. I’m…Jesus,” he rasps out, rubbing a hand over his face, “I’m afraid I’m going to do it again, and this time it’d be me, a gun and an empty room, and only a blood spatter on the wall for Jensen to find.”

 _And no excuses_ , he doesn’t add.

That image - knowing what it would do to Jensen - the tightness in his chest, the inconceivable, the knot all the threads of thought - the pain, the anxiety, the love for Jensen, the trying, the identity he clings to, the acceptance of the past - everything, at once - that makes him want to scream, loud, as loud as he can, scratch at the fabric of his surroundings, change them, mold them into something better just because it hurts too much.

There’s a pause. When Cortese speaks, it’s softer.

“That is not what these dreams are telling you, Sergeant.” She puts a small hand on his bicep, squeezes. She has never touched him. And yet, it takes Jared only a moment to notice and one more for it to become natural.

“Then what?” Jared asks, voice trembling, cracking at the edges. His hands betray him, and the only thing he can do to stop them is to rub them together, press fingers of his right below his knuckles on the left, the small bones, the nerves, right there where it hurts, because pain grounds him, makes him feel real among all the _what ifs_.

“It’s telling you…” she starts, but changes her mind.” No.” Cortese’s stance changes along with the negation - she straightens up, brings her hand to her chin, watches Jared for a few moments, brows furrowed in thought. “No, let’s put it in a way you’ll understand even if you don’t want to.”

The grin she sports cannot be characterized in other way than devilish.

“All the things you’ve been carrying. Imagine there’s a bullet - a magical one - bear with me, Sergeant, a magical bullet embedded in your body.”

“I - “ Jared tries.

Cortese shakes her head, continues. “We’re both out of uniform, Jared. We’re going the unconventional route.”

“And that’s the one with magical bullets.”

The absurdity ranges low-to-mid level on the radar of his life.

“It’s the one with a physical injury site,” the therapist replies. “You refuse to acknowledge the fact that there is something hurting - and while I don’t doubt you’d try even if we’d be drowning in a pool of your blood right now - there are more chances to do it if we put it like that.”

“I’d imagine I wouldn’t drown, since I’d already be dead,” Jared deadpans. “And I’m fairly sure that there is not that much blood in the human body. You’d need an extremely small room -”

“Sergeant.”

Jared stops.

“Figure of speech.”

“Point still stands?”

Cortese grins. “Point still stands. Which is - ” she continues, like Jared didn’t just go on a trip to morbid town. “ - there are wounds that haven’t scarred, only gotten bigger over the years. And you didn’t need the attention for a paper cut; but you do now, when there’s a bullet ravaging your insides.”

Jared doesn’t have time to protest before Cortese starts again.

“You know, Jared, you don’t have to have a military background to have difficulty in expressing how you feel. It helps, sure,” she grins, “if you spend lifetimes in war zones. Those are not for _feeling_. They are for action. There, you simply _are_ , an object, a pawn moved forwards and backwards; you execute orders, and no one, as much as they care about you, wants any other answer to _how are you_ than _I’m fine_. That’s all the mental energy they can spare - asking. That’s all the war leaves in you. In us.”

Sometimes, Jared forgets Cortese was a field medic. Two tours, injury to her back that grounded her permanently. She hadn’t had a pitiful existential crisis like Jared is having - not to his knowledge, at least - simply went back to school, got a diploma, practiced something else that helped people, something that didn’t require 12+ hours of standing, like trauma surgery had.

He’d always wondered how she’d come to terms with that. With an infallible mind and a fragile body. How she wasn’t angry -

“...yourself, Sergeant. Accept that you have someone on your side, truly, undoubtedly. Jensen has proven, time and time again, that he understands.”

“What?” Jared asks, having completely missed the beginning of that sentence, lost in his own musings. 

Dark eyes watch him - stoic, warm, hard - an impossible mix only one other woman in his life had shown. _Sandy_. Cortese’s lips press together. She runs a hand through her hair.

The image disappears.

Not entirely - Sandy proves not to be the only woman Jared can exasperate in ten seconds flat.

“Sergeant Padalecki…you should learn to live. Fully. You are a man that feels deeply - you should let that out, pour it somewhere else than the battlefield. I promise you, the rewards will be more than you ever imagined.”

Ok, he’s now in tune with Radio Therapy. Too much.

“And the hard things? The ones that come before the rewards?”

“You have made more than your share of sacrifices, Sergeant, and they have not killed you yet.

Jared grimaces. “Awful close to it.”

“Never in the way you wanted. And never in the way that counted.”

She smiles. She means what she says. She believes that Jared gets that riddle.

Maybe he does.

Maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s glad to be alive.

~

_“Bullets are cleaner. I could never - jumping off, that always seemed stupid, you know?” Chris asks, leaning back into his chair. “Fuck ton of stories till your skull cracks and your brains spread on the pavement. Too much time to think of it. Bullets…those are instant.”_

_“I’d like the feel of the fall.”_

_“Son, the fall…the fall’s a middle. Middles don’t last. Endings do. Those are the ones that leave scars.”_

_~_

The meeting goes well. Smooth.

Cortese proves this is her day, and leads the conversation first, maneuvers Jared and the four other soldiers that had come into ten minute session of small talk that makes them feel… _normal_.

Or, at least like they’re not in a psych ward.

Then she leaves it to the first soldier. Young. Calvert, Alexander. He plays with his cap, looks only down. His voice is strong. Says his girlfriend had kicked his ass into attending. _Better to do it now. Preventative_ , she’d said. He’s fine.

Jared thinks he is. Mostly.

As much as anyone who runs towards danger and lives to tell the story will be.

The only woman who’d come, brunette and tall, stretching over the small chair, shows them her prosthetic leg under the army green slacks. He thinks, yeah, she’s the one with the right to mope around, bemoan ways of life lost, not Jared, with a few fingers that don’t work quite right.

But then.

An unwanted - _counterintuitive -_ thought.

Maybe this is what Cortese was saying.

About wounds, everlasting bullets and all that.

It’s not all on the surface. 

To Jared, that train of thought is awfully close to derailing - because, really, is he not just making excuses?

He’s…fine.

He could be. If he just - if he wasn’t so -

Yeah, okay. Maybe Cortese knows what she’s talking about. Because every attempt of Jared’s to do better, _be_ better, hits a wall. A solid surface that hides the ugly stuff. But this morning had proven it - it doesn’t stop it from coming out in bursts of unfiltered thought.

There’s a man who looks like Chris. Short, ankles crossed and pulled under the chair, contour of his arm muscles showing through the light blue henley he’s wearing when he crosses his arms. That’s all he does. He watches. Not like Chris - Chris had a glint in his eyes, a warning to stay ready, because you never knew if next he’d crack a joke or pull out his gun. But you knew, whatever he did, he’d solve the issue. It was just a matter of the body count. No, the man sitting across from Jared now doesn’t look at him, not really. He listens, watches a point behind Jared, unmoving. Cortese tells Jared afterwards that it’s a first step, that he’d at least come. Jared, for his part, is not convinced he’s going to see him again.

The last is Everett. Jared barely refrains from not grabbing him by the collar and kicking him out when he sees his protegee coming through the door.

The feeling does not disappear when Everett just shrugs, grins, tells Jared that he’d come _just to see why you’re such an asshole all the time, Sergeant_ , _the great sad story and all that_.

Jared bites his tongue, forces himself to act professional, mentally kicking himself for all the times he ignored the social etiquette related to chain of command. This is payback.

Cortese laughs.

Jared mentally jots down a set of about ten thousand push-ups for Everett for next time.

He reduces it to only one - still thousand - when Everett says, straight-faced, not a hint of sarcasm, _It’s Colin, sir. Ford. He’s - he ain’t like me, you know? He’s taking it hard. He wants to do right by you. But he’s feeling like he’s failing._

Jared learns two things on the occasion: one, that he is, indeed, an asshole, because Ford’s one of his best, it’s precisely why he’s riding him so hard, and two, it would not kill him to pepper in _good job_ here and there beside shouts. And here he thought that abstaining from calling any of them idiots and synonyms of the like would gain him the Drill Sergeant of the Year prize.

No, apparently, his recruits don’t care he’s scared to death of becoming attached. Third thing Cortese points out - calmly, after the meeting ends, proving Morgan’s clairvoyant and a saint - the damage isn’t always done in war.

Sometimes it’s already there, and circumstances bring it out.

The day seems intent on making Jared accept that.

Huh.

But you’d think he’d have known, would have factored it in in his many attempts to define himself of late.

After all, this thing with Jensen. This thing with his injury. It’s a nice package, noble, hero-like. War veteran with mental illness, trouble adjusting. But the truth is, it all might have been crystallized by the pressure he’d been under all these years - but the fears, the thoughts he’s confronting now?

Jared always had them.

Jared, not Sergeant Padalecki.

The alter ego falls away, and, for a moment, Jared realizes - fully, authentically, not without regret and shame - that he’s not the image of the invincible man he wants to project. He’d been doing it so long, that he’d started to fool himself.

So, yeah, all in all? Good. Illuminating, though at times Jared would have much preferred to remain in the dark. Survivable. Exhausting. That’s what he tells Jensen when he gets home.

And he tells Jensen to read to him, just to hear his voice as he falls asleep, because Cortese’s right, the way the low tone spreads over the air, over him, enveloping even his darkest thoughts, tethering him to the part that wants to be alive, that builds smoke walls that let him drown in everything that’s good, everything he’s gotten to call happiness in his life. He sees outside. It’s just faded, and it doesn’t matter as much.

~

_The middle of the ocean. A storm, and a clear sunset sky. Chad’s feet hang over the edge of the boat. Jared drowns._

_“This is why you haven’t gone Navy, is it, Jay? Water.”_

_He laughs._

_Jared watches the waves as they pass over his head. He gets lulled into the motion; fear dissipates. There would be so much until the bottom of the ocean. So long. Even his darkest thoughts would disintegrate under the weight. He’d disappear, and he’d be a current that already passed._

_Chad’s voice brings him back._

_“You swim, Jay.”_

_Jared tries to tell him he doesn’t know how. Not entire oceans to ground._

_“You already are.”_

_~_

When Jensen opens the door, it’s not immediately apparent that something’s wrong. Jensen doesn’t put his hand through the wall after he enters. Jensen boils, Jared explodes - but that doesn’t mean that Jared doesn’t know, that he doesn’t understand.

 _Fear_.

That it’s something physically wrong. His heart.

But Jensen’s strong when he pushes Jared aside, leaves jacket as trail to the shower, shoes, belt. Phone goes smashing into the bedroom wall.

Okay, so, maybe, Jared’s not the only one who should have his surrounding area cordoned off.

Jared follows, in a haze, confused, only training making necessary mechanisms turn, connect the dots for him to walk, to think rationally.

“Jensen?”

He doesn’t hear. The sound of running water follows Jared’s question. Jared picks up Jensen’s plain white t-shirt, adds it to the collection gathered in his hands. Jeans are feet away. Jared deposits them all on their bed. Mechanical. Clean. Jensen would like that. Jared thinks what Jensen would do if the roles were reversed. How he handled Jared spiraling out.

Because that’s what it is, Jared’s sure of it.

He just doesn’t know how to handle it.

It takes a few seconds. Too much. But Jared decides.

He can’t be Jensen. He can’t be Cortese, finding the right words at the right time.

He walks in the shower. Dressed. To touch. To put his hands on the tear streaks on Jensen’s cheeks. To hold him when his legs give out.

Water’s cold. Jensen doesn’t look at him.

Jared switches it to warm with his free hand, keeps the right on Jensen’s bicep. It doesn’t matter too much - Jensen leans back into the tiles. He doesn’t escape Jared’s grip, but it’s certain that the closeness does him harm.

It’s quiet. Water, running, the only soundtrack.

Jared thinks they’re done. That Jensen’s going to talk.

They aren’t.

Jensen moves, too sudden for Jared to catch it in time. Not a _move_. Not intentional. A spasm, involuntary as the scream that accompanies it, short, scratchy, pained, breaking Jared’s heart. The blows may have been aimed at him, or at the glass wall of the shower cabin. Or it may not have had an aim at all. They don’t land. It’s just a tangle of limbs as Jared catches up, uncomfortable, awkward, slippery - tense as Jensen squeezes Jared’s wrist hard enough that all blood flow feels like it’s cut off.

That’s when Jensen looks at him. Surprised.

That’s when they go to bed. When Jared pulls him out of the shower, uses physical strength to force Jensen into the cold bathroom wall as he turns off the water. He presses - not to hurt Jensen - chest to Jensen’s back, knee between his legs, mouth near his ear.

Breaths, hurried, unfinished, small movement, synchronized. It counts more than any words that Jared finds. 

Jensen walks without help to the bed. He refuses it.

Jared towels him off as best he can, pulls off the wet boxers that Jensen hadn’t managed to discard. It’s easy; as soon as Jensen hits the mattress, the fight goes out of him. He falls asleep in minutes; the last moment Jared sees green eyes looking at him is when he takes a seat on the edge of the bed, brings his palm over Jensen’s outstretched hand.

He touches. Grips. That’s how he knows to do it.

He doesn’t know tender.

But he hopes that it’s enough. 

~

Jared's watching TV on mute when Jensen wakes up. He does so in a startled manner, flinching and instinctively bringing hands to his chest, a small, quick gesture of fear that he would have never allowed had it been any other time.

"Jen?" Jared asks as soft as he can. Then seeing as Jensen doesn't react beyond a confused stare, firmer. "Ackles, you're home. You're home," Jared repeats, "with me."

He doesn't add 'everything's going to be alright', because it probably isn't, because everything, is, in fact, moments, good among the bad, and, well, they're many things, including incapable of interacting like normal people 90% of the time, but they're never said outright lies.

“What time’s it?” Jensen asks.

“3.52. In the morning.”

Jensen quiets. His hands come down. Reality hits. Walls come up.

In the end, much like anything Jared does, it's a decision. One he makes without thinking too much about the consequences.

"Ackles," he starts, "go put some clothes on."

Jensen turns his head to watch Jared, dumbfounded.

“What?”

It's something that goes against every fiber of his being. Something feels wrong.

But he’s trying it Cortese’s way. Because if he he goes on the alternate route, doing it like he always did - what’s there to gain from it?

"We’re going to talk," he tells Jensen, with as much courage as he can muster.

Jensen’s confusion melts into a frown, then gets lost behind a neutral expression, Jensen speak for _I don’t want to, show me to the bomb that needs to be defused, I’m better there, please, and thank you._

Yeah.

Jared knows. Both of them would prefer playing Russian Roulette to ever following that statement with an open heart.

But here they are. And this has to be a start.


End file.
